Prelude to a Kiss
by Jennifer Wand
Summary: (Ack, I can't believe I forgot to upload this!) Usagi and Mamoru have to deal with a very unusual and difficult problem.


  
Jennifer A. Wand (eponine@ccs.neu.edu)  
  
...Imouto-chan he...  
  
**  
  
There are all kinds of horrible little sprites in the world. Some have mischief on their minds, some destruction, some harmless pranks and trickery. But all are meddling with stolen magic, and thus are all dangerous to the flow and form of nature. If you have ever heard of a man struck by lightning who could suddenly speak six languages, or read about a hill where water flows up instead of down, then you have seen the sprites at work. And for whatever reason, whatever logic in their twisted little minds, they were swarming Juuban tonight.  
  
Usagi skipped home. She was that happy. Mamoru had spent the evening feeding her popcorn, his arms wrapped tight around her, trying to distract her in various ways from the video they were watching. She'd rolled her eyes and giggled, swatting him with the throw pillows on the couch. Soon, there was popcorn all over the floor. Not only that, she had spilled soda, and it had gotten her sweater all sticky. So Mamoru had given her one of his seemingly infinite number of white shirts. It was light and just a little bit stiff, and seemed to drape luxuriously over her tiny shoulders. She had rolled up the sleeves and been surprised to see a tiny embroidered rose on the inside of a cuff.  
"Mamo-chan, what's this?" she had said.  
"Oh." He gave one of his warm wonderful chuckles. "Just a way I like to keep my shirts separate from everyone else's at the laundry. Do you like it?"  
She nodded vigorously. "It's very you." He smiled at the sound of her giggles. The shirt smelled like starch and Mamo-chan, and she wrapped herself inside it as they settled in to watch the end of the video. It had been great.  
Unfortunately, some sprite was planning great things as well. And when Usagi sang "I enjoy being a girl" laughingly into the fountain, he had a sudden, wicked idea.  
  
**  
  
Prelude to a Kiss  
(formerly titled Spring is the Mischief in Me)  
A Sailor Moon fan fiction  
by Jennifer A. Wand  
  
Japanese to know:  
Hai = Yes  
Naze = Why  
Hidoi = cruel  
Gomen = I'm sorry  
Haru = a boy's name; it also means "Spring"  
Anything else is just syllables, or "um/well..." or words you don't have to know to understand the story.  
**  
  
Mamoru walked to the door, bleary-eyed. The constant rapping had roused him, making him think Usagi was back for some reason. Had she forgotten a purse or some trinket? He looked around through tired eyes, and was halfway through muttering "Hai, hai, Usako," when he opened the door and found himself face-to-face with a stranger.  
The young man was lanky, with a wild expression of fear draining what little color there was in his pale face. Blue eyes stared searchingly into Mamoru's. "Ma--" he started, then stopped and clapped a hand over his mouth in sudden shock and fear. His breaths came fast and shallow through the cupped hand. Mamoru watched, frozen, unable to either speak or close the door on this strange man.  
A few more gaspy breaths, shaky starts, and he found his voice. "Mam... Mamoru-san," he said, leaning against the doorframe as if in danger of falling over, "I... I know this looks strange, but... may I come in? Please?" His whole body shook, and the blue eyes were so earnest and frightened that Mamoru felt he was being pulled under by a sudden tide.  
"Uh--" Common sense cried don't you dare, but what if the man was running from someone... what if he was in real danger? "Uh-- who are you?"  
The man started. "I... know you don't recognize me... uh... but I really... have nowhere else to go, Mamo... Mamoru-san..." His legs gave way, and the man fell to a kneeling position in the open doorway. His hands came out and clutched at Mamoru's pant legs desperately. "Help me..." Then, as Mamoru looked on in horror, his eyes rolled slowly up into his head and he came crashing down onto the floor in a dead faint.  
Sighing with some kind of familiar annoyance, then catching his breath as he remembered the severity of the situation, Mamoru picked the man's limp body up and pulled him inside to lay him down on his couch. The man's body was hot to the touch; his breaths came erratically, even in unconsciousness. Mamoru felt a sudden flicker of something unsettling, but not altogether unpleasant. He pulled up a chair next to the lying man and waited.  
Bleary eyes opened and focused, refocused on the ceiling. "Naze... ata..." came a weak voice. Then those eyes flickered toward Mamoru and widened. All at once the man was moving in a thousand directions at once. His head hit the armrest of the tiny love seat where he was sprawled. Mamoru winced at the sound of the sickening thud. In the motion of recoiling, the man tripped over his own legs and rolled helplessly off the cushions, unceremoniously hitting the floor. That time, Mamoru laughed.  
The man scrambled back up to sit on the couch. "Hidoi wa!" he said in a reproachful tone.  
"Gomen, gomen," Mamoru grinned. "That's just the kind of thing my girlfriend would pull."  
"Your girlf--" He stopped short. "I see." Sadness welled deep in those blue eyes, and Mamoru wanted somehow to comfort him.  
"Oi," he said instead, feeling awkward all of a sudden, "what's your name? And why did you want so badly to get in here before?"  
"My name? Well..." let's see, you know who I am kind of like right now, heh, heh, kind of like "Haruk..."  
"Huh?" Mamoru looked up in slight surprise.  
"Eto... Haru. Haru's my name," the blond-haired boy finished hastily.  
"So, what's going on, Haru-san?" Mamoru said seriously. "Are you all right? You worried me earlier, showing up like that."  
Haru muttered to himself for a moment, occasional "ummm"s rising to the realm of the audible. Then, suddenly, his face contorted in surprise and discomfort. Color drained from his face, and he grimaced. "What's wrong?" said Mamoru in sudden, urgent concern.  
Haru looked up with a guilty smile. "Ano... Mamoru-san..." he said. "Can I use your bathroom?"  
"Oh, sure," Mamoru said, standing up briskly and walking towards the small kitchen. "It's right down the hall to your l--"  
Then, he turned and realized his guest was already through the bathroom door.  
  
Mamoru stood, percolating coffee, waiting for Haru to return. At first there was no noise from the room down the hall, then an uncomfortable whine echoed. Mamoru looked up, startled. The toilet seat slammed with its unmistakable porcelain clank, and Haru's voice let out another frustrated moan. Mamoru walked up to the door just as the complaint came forth: "How on earth do guys DO this?"  
"Uh, Haru-san, are you all right?" asked Mamoru dubiously, tapping briefly on the door.  
"Huh?" came the voice. "Oh! Yeah! I was just thinking, um, that your bathroom was kind of small, Mamoru-san. Not that I mean anything by that," he added quickly, "I'm sure that it's big enough for one person, of course!" He laughed long and loud, a headache-inducing laugh. Mamoru rolled his eyes. He returned to the kitchen, studiously ignoring the subsequent crashes, bangs, sounds of splashing water, and mild curses that ensued.  
Some time later, Haru emerged, looking like he'd lost a wrestling match to a sewer gator. His hair was slightly matted and wet; his sleeves were rumpled; and the expression on his face was nothing less than classic. Still, even with all this, Mamoru couldn't help noticing that his guest was a very good-looking man. "So, you made it out alive," he quipped, feeling somehow compelled to tease poor ruffled Haru.  
"Yeah, sorry," Haru mumbled. He tried desperately to put himself back into order. Nervous fingers strung through hair and pale palms smoothed out wrinkled pants. But his hands couldn't make sense of his shirtsleeves, and the increasingly frustrated look on his face prompted Mamoru to action.  
"Here, let me," Mamoru said, taking a step toward the boy and holding his wrist gently. Haru flushed at the contact. With practiced skill, Mamoru turned up the cuff of the white shirt.  
And saw a tiny embroidered rose.  
His eyes flew up to meet Haru's. Haru's eyes were blue--  
So blue--  
"Usako?" he whispered.  
The young man froze.  
Then, he threw himself into Mamoru's arms.  
  
"I told you already, I don't know how it happened." The pale, nervous blond shifted on the couch. "One minute I was walking home and the next, poof, I'm the cover of Playgirl."  
Mamoru laughed weakly and passed a hand over his feverish forehead. His stomach was churning wildly, and he felt a fist of iron clenching his insides at odd intervals. The leather of his couch was surely soaked with sweat. "T--this is serious," he stammered. "I mean-- we've got to change you back somehow. I-- I'll call Ami-chan..."  
"Don't," Usagi said suddenly, reaching out an arm to stop Mamoru from jumping up. "Ami-chan has a huge exam tomorrow. Let her study."  
"Usa-ko..." Mamoru started, the word breaking on his lips as his eyes swept over the figure sitting beside him once more. It seemed strange to call him that-- or call her that-- him? Each thought turned over each other like the folding of a paper fan in his mind, until he finally cleared it with a violent shake of his head. Enough. "Look, don't you think this is a little more important? Ami-chan will ace the test anyway."  
"But it makes her feel better to know she's studied hard the night before," Usagi answered calmly. "Besides, it's not like I'm dying. I'm just a little different now." He laughed. "That's all."  
"That's all!?" Mamoru's eyes widened. "Usa.."  
This time the name just couldn't make it out. Mamoru turned green. Usagi laughed resignedly. "That's okay, Mamo-chan," he said. "You can call me Haru if it makes you feel better. Oops, sorry," he added, "I mean, Mamoru-san." He offered a small smile, and Mamoru felt compelled to answer it.  
"No, it's okay, Usa..." Mamoru lost the smile after another glance. His mouth tightened. Usagi touched a finger to his own lips in concern.  
"It's all right, Mamoru-san," he repeated in a practiced, even tone. The formality still sounded as natural and warm as the familiar endearment he'd used before. "'Haru.'"  
"...Haru-kun..." Mamoru echoed weakly. He frowned. "It all feels strange."  
Usagi nodded. "Tomorrow we'll get to the bottom of this," he said. "For now, I'll just stay here."  
"Usa-- Ha--"  
The young man's face fell, but he nodded resignedly. "I know, I know. It's uncomfortable for you." Mamoru reddened in shame. "But I can't go home, you know that. Just pretend I'm not here. I'll stay out of your way. Go to sleep, and in the morning we'll talk to Ami-chan. I think her exam is over at eleven. Does that sound like an okay plan to you?"  
His soothing voice dissipated the tension in Mamoru's shoulders, and he sat back, giving his first genuine smile in several hours. "You are always like this," he said softly. "You drive me crazy trying to hold you down and keep you out of trouble, but the minute something is really going wrong, I'm the loose cannon and you're the voice of reason."  
"We have to keep each other sane," Usagi replied. Then, in a lower voice, he spoke half to himself. "That's what lovers do."  
  
Many long minutes passed in the small apartment. Mamoru moved things around in the kitchen, occasionally lifting a coffee mug to his lips with a shaking hand. Usagi played solitaire on the glass coffee table, pausing in mid-deal to examine the reflection that hovered just beneath the surface. He started to talk several times, but no more than "Mamoru-sa..." got into the air before breath froze again. Usagi lowered his head. Mamoru coughed.  
Usagi drew a nine and ran out of cards for the third time in a row. He dealt again and lost again. Finally, he slammed his losing hand down on the table with a satisfying slap. Mamoru blinked, brought to full attention. Usagi looked up and gave a guilty smile. It was the smile that Mamoru gave back that startled Usagi into finally breaking the silence.  
"Funny... you should look at me like that now," he said dubiously.  
"Huh?" Mamoru was thrown. "What do you mean by that?"  
"Of all your smiles," he said carefully, "that is probably my favorite. It's the Usako-is-being-cute-again smile. A lot of the times I'll go through a whole bunch of theatrics just to get that smile out of you."  
"So it's all an act," chuckled Mamoru doubtfully, raising his eyebrows.  
Usagi reddened. "Okay, maybe not all the time... I get a little carried away."  
"Nothing's 'a little' with you, Usako," Mamoru commented. It wouldn't be till later that Usagi would realize he'd used that name without even stumbling. "But I think," he continued, "that is my favorite smile to give, too."  
Usagi's face brightened.  
"And that," said Mamoru, "is probably my favorite smile to get. The I'm-about-to-tackle-you smile." His grin widened in answer to Usagi's. Then something unspoken passed between the two young men, and the atmosphere darkened somewhat.  
"D-- don't worry," Usagi stuttered. "I won't touch you like this."  
"...Sorry..." muttered Mamoru, confused and ashamed all at once.  
"Sorry," echoed Usagi. Then he laughed somewhat. "I suppose this is a little bit how Haruka-san and Michiru-san feel." Mamoru raised his head in surprise. "Though they don't seem terribly uncomfortable about it..." The smile on the blond's face now was half-sad, half-wise, and Mamoru didn't know how to react to it. "...That is, them both being girls."  
Mamoru exhaled loudly, and decided to say nothing.  
"We make fun of it and all," Usagi said. He started playing idly with his shirtsleeves. "If someone mentions them as... a couple... we all yell 'Hentai!' But everyone knows it's true."  
"Mm-hm." Mamoru agreed thoughtfully. His heart was speeding up all of a sudden, and he wasn't sure quite why. Some ominous presentiment about where this conversation would lead. He had the horrible feeling that he would have to choose between two truths tonight. And neither would lead him back to normality.  
"They love each other, though, don't they?" Usagi went on. The expression that would have looked so adorable on her female face seemed skewed and out of place on this blond stranger. His body rocked back and forth as though he were a squirming toddler. "That feels funny to say. They love each other.  
"You know, we won't admit it, we have trouble saying it, but at the same time it seems impossible for them to be any other way. Heh... it's the nineties and listen, Mamo-chan, I can't even talk about my friends being... lesbians without blushing. As if it's wrong somehow. It's not-- but it feels like it anyway."  
His voice lost its grounding and the blue eyes stared off into space. "But when you meet them, and know them, and you feel the love between them, you just know it has to be that way. I wonder if they were together a thousand years ago, like we were?" Usagi laughed a little, and Mamoru felt the floor beneath him shaking. He made a fist in his lap and waited for the inevitable next step.  
"Ne, Mamo-chan..."  
He winced as the words came, although he knew exactly what they would be.  
"If I had been born like this... if we both had been guys in this life..."  
Mamoru's heart cried out. But he kept silent, grimacing with the weight of the question.  
"...would you still love me?"  
  
"Yes, of course, Usako. It's you I love, your soul, no matter what body it may be in. Don't ever doubt that, ever..."  
That was the right answer, he knew. But no matter how hard he tried to spit it out, he couldn't. The words wouldn't come. He scowled, winced, pursed his lips, cleared his throat several times. But he couldn't say it. Something in him couldn't say the words that he knew the boy beside him wanted to hear. Still Usagi repeated "Ne, Mamo-chan..." like a periodic pressure on his spine. He ran his fingers through his hair nervously.  
Usagi began to get worried. "You would, wouldn't you?" he said in a breaking tenor. "Mamo-chan..." His slender fingers reached over toward Mamoru's. Trembling, slowly, closer.  
And then, in a sudden and jerking move, Mamoru snatched his hand away.  
Air vibrated, buzzing, in the room. The air conditioning kicked in with a dim rattle. A fly buzzed by outside the window. The silence filled Mamoru's head. Unbearably loud. He was frozen, hand halted in mid-escape, held level with his unmoving face.  
Usagi was looking up at him. His face, too, frozen. Shock and confusion in a state of suspended animation. But motion began again, minutely, with growing pain welling up in silent blue eyes. The tiniest quivering of his bottom lip. Shoulders tensed, then shook. Like a wave swelling on the horizon, movement and life and time slowly returned, then snapped into place.  
"I'm sorry," said Mamoru in a shaking voice when the instant had passed. His hands flew to his sides, then clasped each other desperately. "I'm sorry."  
"Mamo--" Usagi said. It was all he could say. Breaths fought each other into his open mouth. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward on the couch with a hand on each knee, a carefully neutral pose. His eyes focused dimly somewhere in his lap.  
Mamoru forced himself to look at him. Any one of the components of the scene would have broken his heart. Big blue eyes, shivering with the chill of someone's frigid heart. A face half in shadow. Silence that was so very unlike the pure energy that he called Usako. He should have been weeping. But some horrible little voice, peskier and pettier than the tiny honeybee that forces a picnicker to freeze, kept whispering "What do you see?" And each time, Mamoru helplessly answered, "A guy."  
He sunk down onto the couch beside him. Usagi moved away slightly, a movement that did not go unnoticed. "I shouldn't have done that," he said. Usagi was silent, but Mamoru knew the unspoken words: you're damn right you shouldn't have done that.  
"Um..." he cleared his throat. Why did it always have to be this way? he agonized. He could do anything for her forgiveness, but she always insisted on one thing. The one thing that felt to Mamoru like diving a spoon deep into his insides and scooping out painful little pieces of him for the world to taste. She always insisted he talk to her.  
The frustration of it swam in his mouth, bitter as acid. "Usako, I don't know what you want me to tell you," he said, the words sounding angry, but mechanical and flat.  
"Why is a good start," came the muted tenor voice.  
"I don't know why." Mamoru's words were fire-laced whispers. He wanted to leave it at that, but there were more words inside of him, welling up at Usagi's silent demand. He let them take control. "There's no reason why I should feel any different. Why I should look at you and see anything different. When you asked me that question, I knew exactly what you wanted me to say. I could have said it, you know. I could have lied," and his dark blue eyes snapped up to meet the turquoise ones that shined so expectantly. "But I lied to you once before and it hurt like hell. You know what I'm talking about."  
Usagi's vision filled with rose petals and a black cape swirling away. And cold eyes. "I know," he said shortly.  
"I... really wish I could say that even if you *had* been born a guy, I would have found you anyway. People make a big deal these days about gender making no difference, but the truth is, it does make a difference. It can change everything. And you... you were the one who taught me to open my eyes and see a whole person. Before you I didn't know how to do that. So how could I have opened my eyes to you?"  
"I don't understand." Usagi shifted worriedly. "You did, didn't you?"  
"Ah," Mamoru smiled sadly, "but the truth is... you were so blindingly beautiful that I had to know you, had to see you. Every time we met." Usagi blushed, and his hands rose to his face in alarm. Mamoru continued. "I just think that somehow, things might have been different if you'd been different in any way. If you'd been born far too young or too old for me to even think of you like that... or if you'd been born..." he waved his hand loosely... "like this. I think I would have been drawn to you, but in a different way."  
"Like a brother or something," mused Usagi. His face was mournful.  
Mamoru sat still for a minute. He felt a light penetrate his eyes, a soft ray from some distant sun. Deep and far away, but approaching. He never remembered in moments of frustration this odd peace that came upon him after he'd finally talked things through. But it always did, along with the realization that yes, things did make sense after all. The edges of his mouth curved up slightly, and he looked straight at Usagi as he spoke.  
"But I'd like to think, Usako," he said, his voice growing louder and surer by degrees, "that after I had gotten to know you, after you had taught me to look into your eyes, that I would have seen you for who you truly are. Because you have always been able to look at me with those eyes and see the truth. Just like you are now." He chuckled a little. "Which is why I couldn't lie to you tonight."  
He swallowed and went on. "I think you probably looked at me like that a thousand years ago, when you came down to Earth from the Moon. Because heaven knows, we weren't allowed to look at each other then. But you saw me for what and who I was back then. And that's probably why I loved you." Mamoru's half-smile grew, and his eyes sparkled with the emotion. "I know it's why I love you now."  
"Mamo-chan..." The blond boy could do nothing but smile back. He stared, speechless, at the sudden warmth on Mamoru's face. And then he gasped at a pressure on his back and on his hand, and realized Mamoru had pulled him into a loose embrace.  
He panicked. "You don't have to... Mamo-chan... I mean..."  
"I see my Usako in your eyes, Haru-kun," Mamoru said. Emotion was flowing through him in radiant torrents. "And I love her."  
Then, he pulled the younger boy close and kissed him.  
Mamoru was a column of light. He was spilling over like a fountain. He loved this boy so, so much. The thought echoed in his head without a single shudder, without a single second glance. He held him tight, like an anchor, like the root that held him to this world.  
Usagi's eyes opened. Her eyelashes fluttered against Mamoru's cheek.  
And then she realized she was a she again.  
The light in Mamoru's smile reflected off the thousand and one surfaces of Usagi's crystal eyes, and she glittered a million times brighter. Dazzled, he could only smile wider, and Usagi threw her arms around him with a happy squeal and squeezed tiny bubbles of happiness and breath out of him, until he was gasping and elated. "I'm back!" she repeated in a high windchime soprano. "I'm back!"  
Mamoru laughed. "You never left," he said meaningfully.  
All that was lost on Usagi. She made a face at him and said reproachfully, "YOU know what I mean." Jumping up, she twirled around in the white shirt that was, once more, way too big. "Feels good," she sighed. "No offense, Mamo-chan," she informed him, "but being a boy is not that much fun."  
"That depends on what kind of boy you are, I guess," Mamoru commented, the buzz of her energy diffusing into him a little.  
"Hm!" she insisted, shaking a finger at him. "Next time, you try being a girl, and then you tell me!"  
Mamoru shuddered. "No, that's okay, really."  
Usagi giggled and buried her face in his big shoulder. "You feel so good, Mamo-chan," she purred. "Now that I'm finally the right size again." Her laughs vibrated into his skin, and Mamo felt a rush and shudder of warmth that took over his senses. Reflexively he pulled her closer, inhaling the scent of her hair. Usagi sighed loudly, lost in the bliss of his embrace.  
"I suppose you'd be angry with me if I said I like this much better," he whispered, half-joking.  
"No," she said, and he could feel her cheeks rise as her smile widened. "This is the best."  
Mamoru grinned. Pulling her to face him, he kissed her lips briefly and said in a low, soft voice, "Na, Usako..."  
"?"  
"If we were both born as girls..."  
"...Mamo-chan!!"  
  
*end*  
  
Many fics that deal with the homosexual relationships in SM seem to forget that yes, the characters are somewhat uncomfortable with it at times. The girls do say "Ecchi!" when one of them suggests the truth about Haruka & Michiru's relationship. They *are* human. I wanted to write a fic that dealt *honestly* with the subject: neither a homophobic fic nor one that assumed complete acceptance on the part of all the characters. And, on another level, I wanted to do something unusual to my favorite couple and see how they dealt with it. I hope you all enjoyed this fic. I *really* enjoyed writing it, and I'm pretty proud of it. Feedback? Please write me!!!!!  



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